Journal

Transcripts from the Workshop

As mentioned previously, we held a workshop at a hacker summer camp in Germany earlier this year. Several participants have asked for the transcripts of the responses we collected, so I have typed them up for you here.

I’m really happy we got the chance to do this at an outdoor camping event since some of the potential issues that came up repeatedly have never been mentioned while engaging in similar exercises in the standard indoor setting of a conference.

Context for Data Collection

To provide some context for those unfamiliar with Chaos Communication Camp, it is a week-long outdoor camping event. It is completely run by volunteers and had around 5000 participants in 2019. CCCamp takes place in late August in northern Germany, on the grounds of a former brick factory that is now a museum. This year, that meant daily highs of 35°C while temperatures dropped to 5°C some nights. It was warm during the days, but quite dusty — that explains the frequent mention of respiratory problems.

For the workshop, we had participants answer 3 questions.

First we collected them on index cards, and then we discussed the responses. We tried to pose the questions in a way that every participant can contribute. Our goal was to cover many different motivations for attending the workshop.

The 3 questions we asked on the handout:

1. What are your needs?

Do you have any accessibility or other needs when attending events or interacting with people?

Which obstacles do you (or people close to you) regularly encounter in everyday life?

2. What questions would you have as an organizer?

What challenges do you (or have you) faced as an organizer when trying to make your event inclusive?

What would help you more effectively consider the diverse needs of others in your planning?

3. Have you encountered any notable situations?

Share your positive experiences with inclusive planning practices!

Have you organized events or activities yourself?

Which measures to be more accessible/inclusive have worked well?

The Data Provided

In the following sections I have tried to group the participant’s input thematically, but otherwise they appear exactly as written on the index cards. Most of them were English, the translation for German content has been added in brackets.

Money

What are your needs?

1. Money is always an issue
2. Is there public transport or somebody willing to share cars, tickets, hostel rooms?
   • Ether pads? How to organize that?
3. Need: Low-cost access to events. Obstacles: Often inexistent or poorly/not communicated.
   • Often inaccessible (social stigma, gatekeeping)
   • Sometimes only accessible to in-group, no way for poor newcomers
4. Obstacle: Lack of a bank/credit card number: Abheben [withdrawing cash], where to pay, many ways to pay = good

Distributing Basic Information

What are your needs?

1. How can I contact organizers and participants before the event? What are their names?
2. Kommunizierte/transparente Kommunikationskultur: Wie mit Fragen umgehen? Duzen/siezen? Wer ist wofür die Ansprechperson?
   [Communicated/transparent communication style: How do we deal with questions? Do we call each other “du” or “Sie”? Who to ask for what?]
3. Obstacle: People using communication channels that have excluded me (FB, IRC, …)
4. Obstacle: Last minute announcements which assume I’m always online
5. Obstacle: Lack of phone number (possibly means DECT at camp)

What questions would you have as an organizer?

1. What is your background? How can I reach/excite you?
2. Did i do/say something discriminatory? Can I fix it?
3. Do my signs work, and lead everybody to the correct place?
4. Did I mention all the details that I assumed? How can people reach out and ask?
5. How can we do good signs with all the information you need (to start …)?
6. Help: Don’t change plans after they are initially announced (announce things before event)
7. Help: Use communication channels that don’t need permission of third parties to join, especially a pay-for 3rd party

Have you encountered any notable situations?

1. Positive: Events that have direct train connections
2. Positive: Communicating via a web forum
3. Positive: Events that announce everything on mailing lists
4. Doodle for voting: Time&date

Communication Styles, Diversity

What are your needs?

1. To feel included/welcome
2. More tolerance for people in need (with needs?)
3. Not being able to say my opinion because 1-2 dominant persons speak a lot
4. How can we create a good atmosphere at a convention with people of different political views? (Israel/Palestine at Camp)
5. Personen die sich selbst vorstellen: Dann muss ich die Hürde nicht explizit aussprechen (duzen, siezen, etc)
   [People who introduce themselves, which removes obstacles (pronouns, etc)]

What questions would you have as an organizer?

1. Language/understanding criteria
2. Translation > do you know good interpreters?
3. If there are conflicting needs, what is a good process to decide which to prioritise?
4. Reduction of stigma&obstacles to communicate & talk about needs
5. Where I can find help
6. Did I provide enough options for everyone?
7. How is the “Aufteilung” [distribution] of the sex (gender???) of the guests
8. Need “mentorship”?
9. How to balance encouragement vs pressure?
10. How do you deal with people who are not aware of or are ignorant of others accessibility/diversity/inclusion needs?
11. How to deal with people taking too much room at events?
    (interrupting, constantly asking questions and then answering them to themselves)
12. Will there be difficult privileged people that need distracting?

Have you encountered any notable situations?

1. NFC provides sticky ribbons for pronouns, which can be stacked arbitrarily
2. Ally programme during conferences: For point of access for all sorts of needs
3. Is there an awareness team and what are the exact names of people for contact?
4. More prominent conferences start having equity programmes & chairs
5. A visible clock
6. Positive: Having an announcement board for last-minute changes in a prominent location on the premises
7. More and more non-male people attend hacker meetings
8. The CREW CREW is imo one of the best, “stealthiest” non-threatening all female security crews

Air Quality

What are your needs?

1. To know weather conditions (indoors as well)
   • Indoor weather: AC, humidity, dust
   • Easily accessible info, info upfront
2. Non-smoking areas (smoking areas)
3. Smoke-free zones in all kinds of indoor and outdoor areas, especially queues
4. Smoke free rooms and entrances
5. Frischluft
   [fresh air]

What questions would you have as an organizer?

1. If there are people with allergies or asthma or something else?

Facilities + Hygiene

What are your needs?

1. Unisex bathrooms, or female bathrooms without a long line (enough bathrooms)
2. Large bags/trash bins in toilets for discrete disposal of incontinence material, in ALL bathrooms
3. Are there single-spaced showers?
4. Non-chlorinated cleaning products and removal of any “smell enhancing” products from toilets

Have you encountered any notable situations?

1. One event had women* AND unisex toilets, no men’s toilets. Easy to implement, safer space, cleaner
2. Even distribution of facilities
3. Toilets with tampons etc and toilet paper and sensitive soap and good towels
4. Unisex toilets
5. Are the toilets equipped with stuff like menstrual pads, tampons, deo?

Language, Acoustics, Comprehension

What are your needs?

1. Obstacle: Imperfect comprehension of the language when spoken:
   • Use more pictorgrams,
   • Announcements multi-lingual
   • Normalize ways to advertise which languages&fluency
2. Acoustics to understsand the speaker – quiet audience

What questions would you have as an organizer?

1. Welche Möglichkeiten gibt es beim Veranstaltungsort für gute Akustik? Ggf was kann man dafür tun?
   [Which options does the venue have for good acoustics? What can you do to improve them?]

Have you encountered any notable situations?

1. Demo in Berlin: Gebärdendolmetscher dabei
   [Demonstration in Berlin with sign language interpreter]
2. The (sometimes simultaneous) translation of talks @Chaos Communication Congress is pretty well done compared to other conventions

Noise, Restlessness + Resting

What are your needs?

1. “A level of quietness” not too loud music or too much noise
2. Space to put myself out of the crowd
3. Need: quiet spaces in which to regain spoons.
   Obstacle: People not knowing/understanding
4. Is there some quiet space to decompress/breathe?
5. Quiet place
6. Quiet space
7. Ideas: There should be places for alone time to get out of the crowd
8. A sign/convention to make sure if you want to talk with s/o or not
9. Space to lie down when being flop that is not too hot/cold
10. Screen free rooms (at least not blinking/changing) if I am there longer (e.g. trains, restaurants)
11. Is there some way to distract/busy myself? When bored, am I allowed in?
12. Not being required to stay seated during a talk

Have you encountered any notable situations?

1. Chillout/silent area

Mobility, Accessibility, Travel

What are your needs?

1. No coat hangers
2. Cup holders
3. Find the location: sometimes there are no signs to the location/parking space/registration …
4. Obstacle: No ramps for carrying heavy luggage or bicycle on promises and on the ways, also for wheelchairs and Kinderwagen
   [strollers/prams]
5. Help with transport of stuff from cars
6. Need: Seating, not being required to stand for extended periods of time
   (Obstacles: queueing :(, areas without seating, “defensive” architecture)

What questions would you have as an organizer?

1. What are attendees’ access needs? How do they prefer having them addressed?
2. Help: Make sure that the location is ramp-accessible
3. Wie kommt man mit dem Rolli zum raum?
   [How do you reach a room in a wheelchair?]
4. Visibility: Accessible to sight impaired people with different levels of impairment?
5. What options has the venue
6. Help: Choose a location in a place with an accessible method of arrival
7. Wie reist ihr an?
   [How do you travel?]
8. Brauchst du eine Kinderbetreuung? Kannst du eine anbieten?
   [Do you need child care? Can you offer child care?]
9. Child care facilities

Have you encountered any notable situations?

1. Childcare options/share/areas
2. Ramps
3. Designated helper for Philipp in wheelchair
4. Positive: Taking place on a single level (of a building), with no staircases
5. At big conference: Volunteer training by people with needs: E.g. blind people told them how to do&communicate guidance
6. A clear welcome structure/people who gave some thought about welcoming people
7. Positive: Events that have direct train connections

Food + Drink

What are your needs?

1. Free water (tap water)
2. Drinking water available?
   (Taps? Is it possible to refill bottles? Which height?)
3. Not to be pushed to drink alcohol in social situations
4. Non-alcoholic drinks (that are not water)
5. Will the social event involve a lot of alcohol?
6. Being vegetarian
7. Lebensmittel bei Tagung/Workshop o.ä. > typische Allergene berücksichtigen: Label, make sure options are available
   [Food at convention/workshop etc > consider common allergens: Label, make sure options are available]
8. Food with allergenes labeled and with options that are safe to eat for me

Have you encountered any notable situations?

1. My village kitchen has vegetarian food and soy milk and normal cow milk
2. Design for extreme groups (vegan for all)
3. Free water at conference
4. Einen “Kneipenabend” von Studis, bei dem niemand gezwungen wurde, Alkohol zu trinken
   [Socializing event with students at a bar, where nobody was forced to drink alcohol]

Next Steps

Since this post is very long with the transcript alone, I will let the data speak for itself for now.

We are currently in the process of adding a section for outdoor events for Finding Useful Questions. It will contain both the most relevant issues that came up in the workshop and explanations on how to deal with them. Make sure to check it out!

I want to thank all the participants for joining us, asking questions and taking part in the discussion.
We’ll be back for 36C3, so if you’ll be there come say hi (or poke us on twitter)

See you at Congress for the second edition of the workshop ;)

The next Workshop:
36C3 in Leipzig,
Day 2 (28.12.2019) 14:00-16:00
Lecture room M1